Scientists from Alfred Kinsey to David M.Buss (author of The Evolution of Desire) have focused on male promiscuity against the baseline assumption that this behaviour resembles mating strategies in the animal kingdom prescribed by anisogamy. Some even justify the worst human male behaviour – rape, marital infidelity and some forms of domestic abuse – as adaptive traits that evolved because males are born to be promiscuous while females are sexually reluctant. The trouble with this universal law is it’s not universally true. Just ask the lioness.
